About Wry

Some of the posts are for students, and others are written for host families. Feel free to post comments. Email me at WryExchange at gmail dot com. This blog isn't updated. I have retired from high school exchange volunteering, but some of the information may still be relevant.
Former About Wry: I try to help our world, one person at a time, as a volunteer for High School Foreign Exchange Students. I have depression, DID, and ADD. My thoughts are non-linear, my memory sucks, and I'm snarky.

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Husband and I were invited to two graduation parties this weekend for family friends. One child graduated from college, and the baby graduated from high school. Husband had a swell time at Friday night’s party/polo game. We missed today’s polo, but arrived for the party. Square dancing had just started when we all noticed thick black smoke in the distance, about a mile away. People were joking about whose house was on fire. “Too far away to be ours.” “Too much to the right to be yours.” Husband thought it looked like burning tires. The fire chief quietly left the party. Someone was nosy enough to go investigate. He returned to the party yelling to his brother that it was his property. The party went silent. No one moved. He had to shout four times for anyone to respond. He’s kind of a jerk, so we were waiting for him to yell “Just kidding!” The spell was broken when we heard the fire trucks roar past.

Husband and I followed our friends to their home. Thankfully, their house wasn’t on fire. They have a one room Summer house by their lake. It burned to a crisp. The timbers were only a foot above the ground By the time we got there, and walked back the long drive, the fire was dying out. The firemen soaked a wide area of fields and woods. We walked to their home, and watched the firemen working down over the hill. The fire was down to the lake and over to woods. As it died down, the women joined the men. (Not being sexist, but we had flipflops on, the guys had real shoes.)

As we walked down the path, we noticed something really weird. The grass/weeds were green, but the ground was black. It looked like rich soil; we don’t have dirt like that around here. We guessed the grass was so wet it didn’t burn. The firemen told us the fire burned underground. It went through rabbit holes and ditches, and popped up in different places. It was much closer to the house than we thought. I never heard of fires going underground except those coal fires in Centralia, PA. The lake is an old stripper cut, so maybe?

We all returned to the original party to resume square dancing. The firemen said to check on the fire every half hour during the night.